The Futility Infielder

Notes on a Weekend

On Sunday, in and around the several other things I was doing, I watched Mike Mussina trudge his way through six ugly innings against the Oakland A's. He allowed 11 hits and 4 runs, including an upper-deck 2-run home run to Terrence Long, but the Yanks rung up 8 on Mark Mulder, the A's fine young pitcher, and Moose got the W.

YES broadcasters Jim Kaat, Michael Kay, and Paul O'Neill spent a lot of time talking about Mussina's woes. Kaat, who pitched in the bigs for about 74 years (oh, only 25?) talked about the way different players are willing to listen to advice from their coaches and implied that Mussina isn't the most coachable ballplayer. Kitty spoke of his own receptiveness to coaches and how it came out of the fact that as someone who wasn't a hard thrower, he was always looking for whatever extra edge he could get. I gather he thinks Mussina's being too stubborn to listen to anybody else's help in working his way out of this.

Kaat dismissed any notions about Mussina's velocity being down despite the fact that other folks, from analysts to casual fans, are making the same observation. Then he started talking about how radar guns and baseball statistics are overrated. Sometime's Kitty's got great insights, but when he starts telling the statistics to shut up, I get nervous.

Not that this needs to become the Travails of Mike Mussina Weblog, but still on that note...

After my second whack at examining Mussina's troubles, John Perricone, who produces the excellent Only Baseball Matters weblog, called my attention to another analysis by a nascent weblogger named Aaron Gleeman. Aaron points out three things that may be causing Moose to struggle: his declining strikeout rate, the Yankees' defense, and his penchant for the gopher ball. Because Moose isn't striking out as many batters as before, more balls are being put in play. The Yankee defense is nothing special (they rank 10th in the AL in Defensive Efficiency--a Bill James stat which tells us what percentage of the time a defense converts a ball in play into an out. More on that in a moment), and so more balls in play means more hits. Hence, more troubles for Moose.

Over at Baseball Musings, David Pinto points out how the Yanks' Defensive Efficiency has been dropping as the season goes on. The formula for Defensive Efficiency is:

(Batters Faced Pitching - Hits - Walks - Strikeouts - Hit By Pitch) ÷ (Batters Faced Pitching - Home Runs - Walks - Strikeouts - Hit By Pitch).

DERs tend to be around .700; they are, essentially, the inverse of the batting average on balls in play. Here are the Yankee DERs by month, according to Pinto:

Month    DER

April   .726

May     .710

June    .669

July    .647

Aug.    .698

Wow. By comparison, the worst DER in all of baseball is Cleveland's .681. The Yanks' July .647 means that batters hit .353 on balls in play. That sure isn't helping Mussina or the Yanks' tired bullpen; it's surprisng that Andy Pettitte is surviving, let alone flourishing, in that environment, given how he relies on ground balls. And it's further evidence that the Yanks D is nothing to brag about.

• • • • •

Terrence Long seemed to be everywhere the past few days. First he robbed Manny Ramirez of a game-winning homer in Boston on Wednesday. Then on Friday, he made a crucial assist to nail the go-ahead run at the plate against the Yanks in the 8th, and a great sliding bellyflop catch on a Ron Coomer bloop in the 15th. Today he crashed into the wall catching a long drive (he held on), and nearly took a homer away from Shane Spencer. Long doesn't have a great reputation as a centerfielder--recall his misplay in the 2000 ALDS Game 5 led to a six-run first inning--but he had a hell of a week, and it was pretty fun to watch.